WW - is your bunny eating a healthy bunny diet

discuss what you feed at what times etc

- do you forage
- do you create their meals so your bunnies have activities


- foods you avoid for your bunny
- food for bunnies with health conditions

discuss ...

Currently bunnies are only getting grass, bramble, rose and willow forage wise. can't wait for spring.

They have veggies, pellets, hay and treat hay twice a day with forage in the morning also. I usually stuff loo rolls, use a hay ball, treat ball and toy and spread the food across the levels in the shed and sprinkle pellets in the hay.

They have Hay for pets timothy and rye for their main hay, with various treat hays from either the hay experts or zooplus. I mix SS and Excel pellets these go in two seperate bowls, the treat ball and sprinkled through their hay. forage tends to go out in the run along with grass in the hay ball. Veg also goes out in the run during the day but in loo rolls on the different levels in the shed at night.

They have two hay and litter trays out side and in the shed also.

The veggies are all from the RWAF list and they occasionally have fruit too. This morning they had kale, savoy cabbage, romaine lettuce, spring greens, coriander carrots and a grape each.

They also get a fenugreek crunchie or a oxbow digestive or papaya tablet as a treat once a day.

The only things I avoid feeding are courgette and celery as they don't like them.

I love the Galen Garden dried forage and herbs too.

Poor Hugh's diet is not as good as it should be. With his lovebun being sick she had a very delicate tummy and he is a calcium bun who had to have a bladder stone the size of a grape removed, so finding veg they could both eat was like finding Neverland. So he's been pretty much on all the hay he can eat in as many varieties I can find and his science selective pellets, plus some coriander and basil. I really want to increase this now that he's on his own.

Can calcium buns have forage? Anyone with a calcium bun that has advice on good healthy bunny treats, I'm all perked up ears!

icklepxy said:

Poor Hugh's diet is not as good as it should be. With his lovebun being sick she had a very delicate tummy and he is a calcium bun who had to have a bladder stone the size of a grape removed, so finding veg they could both eat was like finding Neverland. So he's been pretty much on all the hay he can eat in as many varieties I can find and his science selective pellets, plus some coriander and basil. I really want to increase this now that he's on his own.

Can calcium buns have forage? Anyone with a calcium bun that has advice on good healthy bunny treats, I'm all perked up ears!

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My calcium bun could manage chicory and celery (especially the leaves) with a tiny bit of apple for a treat. Beware though, chicory can be gassy. It's a horrid problem


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My two have Science Selective pellets in the morning, with a couple of leaves of spring greens or a handful of kale, and I top up their hay. At tea time they have some herbs hidden in their run, maybe in a box mixed up with some hay or under some stacking cups, or maybe some brocoli hung up - I try and do different things for them at tea time. I top up their hay then too. Then at bed time they get a couple of Fibafirst sticks each (thats their favourite time of the day) They havent had Fenugreek crunchies yet, but there are some winging their way to my house as we speak, so they will be trying their first crunchie any day now


I do forage for them but at the moment there doesnt seem to be anything to find. In the summer/autumn I was picking plantain, sticky weed, dandelions, willow and nettles for them. I am planning on planting some rabbit friendly stuff in my veg plot this spring too.

Haywise, they get Hay for Pets Ings or Timothy and Rye, although I have tracked down some nice bales of farm hay which I am going to try them on this weekend.

I have some readi grass but I dont think that agrees with Arthur (nothing definate, I just have a hunch), so I dont give that to them any more. It doesnt matter though because the guineas love it!

SJH said:

It's a horrid problem


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The gas or the calcium intolerance ?

icklepxy said:

The gas or the calcium intolerance ?

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The calcium

To answer the rest of your first post, I didn't know much about forage when I had my calcium bun so stuck with the veg (chicory and celery) and hay (timothy). However, I do know that dandelion and clover are high in calcium; I don't know about the rest unfortunately.

I feed Burgess excel junior and dwarf nuggets to my two youngsters at the moment, but once this lot has gone I'll be changing them over to the adult nuggets. They get one small handful each at night time and otherwise have constant access to hay and fresh water.

I buy my hay from Hay4Pets the Timothy and rye mix and the buns absolutely love it! It's lovely quality and very long strands. They get a few other hays as well, like burgess forage and a handle of readi grass when I feel I need to.

They get the occasional leaf of cabbage or a handful of leafy greens but this tends to be every other day, just to add variety and stop them getting bored. I do feed fenugreek crunchies but have run out at the moment.

My mum bought me some treats for the rabbits that I refuse to feed them as they are bright orange and mostly made of egg... She took it offensively and my brother and her thought I was being stupid "it wouldn't say for rabbits if it wasn't" :eye roll: But I won't give them to them as I don't think they are suitable, so they are in a box somewhere :lol:

I would love to forage for them and add even more lovely things to their diets but while I'm at uni I'm in the middle of A city so don't have access to wild areas. Back home I have loads of countryside walks etc. and I forage from my horses field when I can

They seem happy enough :lol:


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Spenser's diet could be better, to be honest. He has Science Selective pellets, Orchard Grass hay, various dried leaves leaves, but a few treats (mainly healthy) every day.

For Scrappy I usually make up a forage box in the morning: cat litter tray filled with different hays (Ings, meadow, oat, orchard grass, timothy and rye) bits of torn up dried forage (eg dandelion, plantain, birch, blackcurrant leaves) and some SS pellets all mixed in together. Same again in the evening, except a small amount of chopped veg/greens instead of the pellets. I find she seems to enjoy being fed that way: she spends ages digging and foraging around in the box looking for the best bits, and then gobbles up most of the hay before a quick stretch and flop She also loves apples so I would normally give her a bit of that when I want to give her a treat.

icklepxy said:

Poor Hugh's diet is not as good as it should be. With his lovebun being sick she had a very delicate tummy and he is a calcium bun who had to have a bladder stone the size of a grape removed, so finding veg they could both eat was like finding Neverland. So he's been pretty much on all the hay he can eat in as many varieties I can find and his science selective pellets, plus some coriander and basil. I really want to increase this now that he's on his own.

Can calcium buns have forage? Anyone with a calcium bun that has advice on good healthy bunny treats, I'm all perked up ears!

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Celery is good for helping move calcium through the system and can help prevent build up

Scrappy's Little Helper said:

For Scrappy I usually make up a forage box in the morning: cat litter tray filled with different hays (Ings, meadow, oat, orchard grass, timothy and rye) bits of torn up dried forage (eg dandelion, plantain, birch, blackcurrant leaves) and some SS pellets all mixed in together. Same again in the evening, except a small amount of chopped veg/greens instead of the pellets. I find she seems to enjoy being fed that way: she spends ages digging and foraging around in the box looking for the best bits, and then gobbles up most of the hay before a quick stretch and flop She also loves apples so I would normally give her a bit of that when I want to give her a treat.

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This is a great idea.Ive made forage boxes up for my buns before but never thought of putting in everything including pellets and their veg before.

hoppetylop said:

This is a great idea.Ive made forage boxes up for my buns before but never thought of putting in everything including pellets and their veg before.

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Lopsy likes it: he has a drip-tray into which goes hay and pellets, sometimes forage and kale too. Last night he had the lot in there and was up to his shoulders in hay, snuffling out the pellets: when he came out his floofy fine hair between his ears was all stuck up XD

Lopsy's on some sort of meadow hay which is mostly brown and some lovely baled farm stuff which is a great mix of grassy bits and sticky bits: he has a hay-tray (the drip-tray) and a hanging basket. He's currently on a scoop and a half of Burgess Excel (about 35g) which is divided between a treatball, his new 'bird fatball' feeder, three or more cardboard tubes, his hay-tray and sometimes hand-feeding Veg-wise it's two large-ish florets of broccoli, a dinner-plate-sized-ish amount of savoy cabbage (he's decided he doesn't like the rest as much!) and a small handful (maybe 15-20g?) chopped kale. He was having apple recently too, a small wedge each morning (probably equivalent to a heaped teaspoonful!) to make sure he was eating ;P I give him a change variously with some of the dried forage we have in too, and Matt gets some fresh rose or even bramble occasionally. Dried forage wise, we have dandelion, willow sticks, hawthorn leaves-on-sticks, dock, dead nettle, a bit of grass, ladies-bedstraw and lavender. He sometimes gets readigrass but he's not really that fussed by it!

Thank you that's really good to know. Just the leaves or the whole heart?

Edit I meant to quote not sure why that didn't work. I meant to quote Gem.

hoppetylop said:

This is a great idea.Ive made forage boxes up for my buns before but never thought of putting in everything including pellets and their veg before.

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Thanks It's a great boredom breaker, she usually spends a good hour at least in the box and it definitely seems to encourage more hay eating.